


His Thoughts Are His Own

by Catchclaw



Series: Mental Mimosa [297]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Coping, In Which Zemo's Plan Fails, M/M, Memories, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-18
Updated: 2019-08-18
Packaged: 2020-09-08 03:47:41
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 585
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20300254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Catchclaw/pseuds/Catchclaw
Summary: There’s no manual about coming back from the dead.





	His Thoughts Are His Own

There’s no manual about coming back from the dead. It isn’t like waking up from some long sleep, like it was for Steve. As far as Bucky’s concerned--though he’d never fucking say it out loud--Cap had it easy: one moment the light switch was off, the next it was on, and in between, 70 years had gone by, vroom, and Steve had emerged without a scratch on his body or mind.

For Bucky, though, there was no single switch, no neat distance between on and off. Instead, he’s been alive this whole time; even when he was on ice, he didn’t know a second of peace. He remembers and he remembers and none of it was good and now, somebody’s finally turned off the blender in his head, sure, but that doesn’t mean what’s inside his noggin is any less of a mess.

The terror of what he’s done--what, when he closes his eyes, he can see his hands doing--is goddamn awful enough. But the real horror for him lies in not knowing what the fuck he’s supposed to do now that his thoughts are his own.

So he spends a lot of time in bed, is what he does. Because it’s easy and it makes him feel safe.

It’s his bed, technically, but also: it isn’t. It belongs--like everything in this crazy, plugged-in place--to one Tony Stark, a man whose mother Bucky strangled (_the circumference of her neck, the precise pressure required. These things Bucky’s metal fingers remember) _, a man who beat the shit out of him for it. And Steve.

He remembers his back on cold concrete and the stench of snow and dust and his other life and watching Steve bleed for him, his fists raised and his jaw set, a sight Bucky’d seen a million times except this wasn’t some random punk Steve was whaling on, it was his friend, it was Tony, and whatever shit had brought them to this moment, all at once he saw how it was going to end and--

“No,” he’d said, the word parched, full of blood. “Steve, goddamn it, _ stop_!”

He’d had to spit out a few times before they could hear him over the bruise of metal and flesh and when they had, the looks on their faces--the little shadows he could see--were stripped so far past sense, they might as well have both been at sea.

“Stop,” he’d said again. “Jesus, please. This is my fault, not yours. Let him kill me if he wants to.”

“No!” Steve had barked and then there was a shudder, a gross metallic whine. Resignation.

“I’m not going to kill you,” Stark said. His voice was dull and flat. “Either of you. Though God knows I feel like you deserve it.”

His eyes had fluttered then as adrenaline gave ground to relief but he’d heard Steve’s boots scrape, heard the wheeze of two breaths. “Tony,” Steve said, “I’m so sorry. God, I--”

“I don’t want to kill you, Rogers, but I don’t want you to fucking touch me right now, either.”

A sigh. “Ok, Tone. Ok. All right.”

Then Steve’s arms were around him, big and familiar, lifting, and when he’d lain his head back against Steve’s shoulder and opened his eyes, all he’d seen was the sky.

Now he’s back in the land of the living--not on anybody’s list, not living undercover--and he’s in Tony Stark’s house. It is, to say the least, fucking peculiar.

**Author's Note:**

> Struggling with words right now, friends. Life is especially stressful and even the constraints of this series are not proving fruitful. Please bear with me.


End file.
